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I work at Google, but this is my personal website. The views expressed on this site are my own and not necessarily those of my employer. Comments left on this blog are only representative of those who left them.

Pumpkin pie

On Thursday night, I will eat pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving for the first time in this millennium. As you may know, I’m a picky eater. My first memories of pumpkin pie are of me thinking that it looks mushy, and that’s not a texture that I like. I did give it a try one Thanksgiving night, and I know it was before 2000 because I remember we were in our old house. Just as I suspected, it was mushy, and I didn’t like it.

Last year, at Thanksgiving dinner in Pennsylvania, I as usual passed on the pumpkin pie. On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I was on the long flight back to California. It’s a longer flying time than the eastbound flight, and it feels eternal. By the time they served dinner, I was bored and hungry. I was at that point where anything would taste good… I can’t believe the things I’ve eaten on planes out of desperation. I finished the main part of my meal, and as a special treat, they served a slice of pumpkin pie for dessert. I was still hungry, and went for a bite. Wow, it was good. And not just good because I was hungry; it was legitimately delicious. So delicious that I was really mad at myself. I was sitting there enjoying airline food after passing on the homemade version just a few nights before. I promised myself that at the next Thanksgiving dinner, I would eat pumpkin pie. I can’t wait.

The picture you see at the top of this post is from Thanksgiving 2004, just after someone had listed a grilled cheese sandwich on eBay, which, allegedly containing the image of the Virgin Mary, sold for $28,000. As you can see, our pie benefited from some saintly intervention as well, which is probably why, between mouthfuls, the pie-eating members of my family described it as “divine.”